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Facebook Shows Signs of Slowing

by: YOUNG MONEY Staff

Questions continue to rise for the social media giant Facebook as the company considers an initial public offering next year. Inside Facebook reports that the website saw losses last month in its earliest adopters, the U.S. and Canada, even as its worldwide customer base grew.

The website found that Facebook had grown to around 687 million active users through May, from more than 675 million at the start of the month. Though this represents 1.7 percent growth, the U.S. actually lost nearly 6 million users last month and another 1.5 million from Canada.

These losses were more than made up for by huge gains in Brazil, Mexico and Thailand, each of which saw more than 7 percent growth, with Brazil reaching as high as 10 percent.

The Financial Times notes, however, that last year Mark Zuckerberg had revealed to IF that the site used to see around 3 percent growth per week, showing the site has clearly substantially slowed its gains. IF claims that growth tends to fall sharply once membership reaches around half the population.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook is in serious talks about expanding into China, but noted that the potential for growth in the Asian giant is balanced against the possibility that policies demanded by the Chinese government could damage the site’s potential elsewhere.